My 3 Day Experience With Grindr and Hornet

Over the last three days, something has been eating away at me. Something that I need to get off my chest.

As many of you probably already know, Grindr and Hornet are two gay dating apps, which help locate people around you. While they are similar, both have slightly different features. For example, with Grindr, you can only have one picture. Half the time messages you receive are from people that have no picture at all. This can be challenging when trying to decide who is real and who isn’t. Hornet, on the other hand, allows you to post up to 4 pictures, and then 4 private pictures (which probably consist of exactly what you’re thinking). This makes Hornet seem more like a hookup site than a dating site, considering most guys will offer up their private pictures without even talking to you first.

I started using Grindr and Hornet both a few days ago. I knew it was going to have some ugliness to it, but I figured some people might actually be there for the same thing I am. Dating. Unfortunately, that turned out not the be the case.

Over the last three days, I’ve seen that there are several types of guys on these apps.

The guy that messages me, seeming normal at first, then quickly turns it into a sexual conversation to try and get in my pants.

The guy that messages me asking for sex right away without even introducing himself.

The guy that plays it cool, pretends like he wants to be friends, acts semi-normal, and then out of the blue blocks me.

The guy that pretends he wants a relationship and then suddenly stops talking.

The guy that will play it cool for a little while, tells me how amazing I seem, and then blocks me.

And finally, the guy that genuinely seems interested but I never hear from again.

I know for a fact that I can’t be the only one who has this issue. But my question is then, where are the others like me?

I stand by the gay community in a lot of ways. I always will. We’re a struggling group, trying to find acceptance in a lot of places. But riddle me this: How come we expect acceptance from straight people when we act like this to each other? We’re feeding into exactly what straight people think about us by doing the things we do on these sites to one another.

I understand that many gay men have given up, and use these sites as a last resort for sex. And in no way am I insinuating the entire community is like this (*cough* Me *cough*). I know for a fact they are not. But in situations like this, it makes it harder for me to believe in this concept of love. If I can’t find someone in the real world and certainly can’t find someone online (which is where many gay men have sadly turned to), where am I supposed to find it?

I believe as a community, we need to make it stop. It hurts me to see the way we hurt each other, pretending that none of us have feelings. We’re humans, not sex toys. We’re not things that we can just throw away. If we don’t want society to treat us badly and toss us away, we should probably work out the issues going on in our own community first.